Asspeaker

This is pretty funny reimagining of how you interact with a speaker. If music makes your shake your bottom, why not make the speaker look like a bottom?

MX: Portfolio Concepts

After reviewing all them damn portfolio webernet sites and what nots, that eppelheimer posted I've decided a couple things about what I DON'T want my portfolio site to be.

—I don't want the images to take forever to load

—I don't want the site to take forever to load

—I don't want my images to be small

—I don't want to click things when a roll over would suffice

—I never want a new window to open to display work, NEVER

—I never want a shadow box, or lite box to open to display work

—I don't want music, unless the music is part of a video in the portfolio.

—I DON'T, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WANT MY WEBSITE TO BE A FACSIMILE OF SOME REAL LIFE THING THAT IT IS NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That being said, I've brain stormed these ideas so far.

—All the videos for the site are on youtube or vimeo, all the photos are on flickr, and all the copy is on blogger. The site pulls the information from all these places so what happens is i've used existing tools to jerry rig a content management system.

—An all iphone portfolio. The site will only be accessible via iphone. I know this is really elitist, and really esoteric, but given my audience, I think they'll have iphones.

—An augmented reality portfolio, in which the interaction takes place through physical interaction with the site. You are recorded by your web cam, and your actions are tracked and cause change. you navigate by pointing etc.

—A mouseless website. All interaction is done with keys. The navigation responds to numbers, and the image selection responds to letters. cmd Z enlarges images, and the arrows are used to scroll through text if necessary.

—A modal cursor. The nav and other interactive elements all exist within the cursor. A secondary click calls them up. This way you never have to move back to where the nav is to click it, but rather, all you have to do is right click for access.

That's all I have for now, maybe I'll come up with more ideas after tonights AIGA lecture.

VA: Names, & Descriptions & Things

Possible Project Names

—Tag Along

—Tag Along KC

—Save Money, Save the Planet: Tag Along (38 characters)

—Carpooling in Kansas City

—Share Your Ride

—Drive Lite

—Road Lite

—Lite Road

Project Description

Kansas City, like any major city, has a problem with rush hour traffic. The commute is slow and dangerous with people zipping around each other to get to work on time. The main problem here is these people are in their cars ALONE! What I’ve created is a tool to connect these morning rush hour commuters, not only based on destination, but schedule as well. These commuters are busy and have an ever changing schedule, so why limit the idea of carpooling to the same carpool companion every day. Why not draw from every commuter? and create a flexible system that facilitates and encourages people to ride with anyone goin’ their way.

Photograph

MX: SWOOP PROCESS!

VA: Individual Readings

A little project from Eyebeam. This is hilarious. you can read the full description here. Basically it does all the praying for you so you don't have to. This is great for religious people have are to busy evangelizing to ask god for a winning lottery ticket.

DS: Oto

After renaming the moon Oto, I had to figure out a way to display that typographically. I went through a long process of type iterations that used typefaces I felt would be found in the future. Most of them were sans-serifs, because I don't think there will be serifs in the future. mostly because of the screen, but that's another argument.


I then started making forms that would work with the moon. It would have to convey a mooniness, but remain simple and scaleable while still carrying a rich history of discovery and exploration.



After choosing a logo type and a moon mark I began applying it across a rang of materials. Some fun and some practical. I like the moon juice, and check out the teleportation function of the oto app. It's pretty sweet.

MX: Iphone screens

This is where Ramzy and I stand so far on our iphone application for multimedia experience. more iterations will be posted to Flickr soon with explanations of process, but for now I'll show you this. We are in a good place. I need to replace some images that are place holders to make the information being conveyed more clear, and make a few more screens, but the architecture is there, so it's just a matter of replacing content. The next step really is task scenario animations for FRIDAY'S PRESENTATIONS!!!!!!!!

VA: Rapid Prototype Feedback

My audience that I showed these name iterations to responded most to zip and tagalong. They thought that these names were expressive of the concept, but not so literal as to avoid mystery. They felt that both would plant the name in the ear of an eavesdropper, and possibly prompt them to look up the name online.
The two stylistic iterations that they responded to were these. They thought the typography was friendly, and would work well with the concept by making it appeal to a range of users. The thought the top version, while they liked the translation of the "o" into a tire, they thought it should look more tire-like, and less like a cookie.

In this wire frame version, they didn't like a non standard nav. They understood the need and want to be innovative on the web, but in terms of a tool that a variety of user types, and experience levels would be using, they wanted a more standard wireframe. I think this makes sense for something that requires a range of support from across ages and technological expertise, so making it more standard is probably a good idea.

This is the aesthetic they liked most. The rounded content areas appealed to them, as being helpful friendly and non-threatening. They also liked the idea of a more direct relation between the amount of money saved by the user, and the user. It was suggested that in the beginning, it might not be such a large number of savings, and could be potentially discouraging. So they thought it would be a good idea to switch between different views of that number e.g. actual money saved, predicted money saved in a week, predicted money saved in a month, etc.

This wireframe is the one they responded to most, and thought I should marry the aesthetic of the one above this with this wireframe. The only problem they had with it was they wanted the profile and the suggestions switched. Since a user naturally reads from left to right the progression of information should go "Me, things that pertain to Me, and other people interested in Me" so logically there is a path to follow.

Moving forward I plan to consider all their various commentary on the site objectively and really examine the data to decide if these are comments based on preference or real usability and clarity concerns. I feel most fall into the latter, which is good for me. I plan to revise based on those decisions, and my compatriots have agreed to meet with me again to review my revisions.

VA: Research Summary

So far in this project I have contacted several different types of people in a few different ways. First I tried calling the Missouri Department of Transportation in order to get an inside view on the highway/traffic problem. However, this proved less than fruitful since the main office people in Jefferson City told me to call the Kansas City office since Kansas City would have more direct information. Kansas City in turn directed me back to Jefferson City because “they have all the information at ‘central’.” Then Jefferson City directed me to the website because, “all their information is made public by publishing it on their site.” So I made up an internet questionnaire and sent it to a few businesses that I had contacts at and I got back something like 50 responses. I also joined a website that MoDot had directed me to called Carpool Connections a site that is supposed to match people with carpool associates. I got a number of responses back from them, all suggesting that they don’t use the service because it doesn’t really work to well. Also I learned from this research, which I didn’t ever come across online, that 100% of the people that carpool do it to save money, and the people that don’t would like to if their was an easy way to make carpooling work within their business schedule. I would say in all this process was pretty simple due to the volume of responses I got back and the resounding agreement that carpooling would reduce traffic and save money so long as their was a way to streamline the process of connecting people with matching work schedules and destinations.

Initially my problem was that there is too much traffic in Kansas City, but through my research I realized that traffic isn't a problem if there are less cars, and less cars can easily be a reality if people road together in the same car. CARPOOLING!

The real problem is thus restated to be that people don't carpool.

I'm trying to reach people like this. He is a businessman that commutes from the suburbs to the city for work everyday and is always caught in rush hour traffic. If only he knew how many people were goin' his way then maybe he wouldn't have to drive in that hectic traffic everyday.

The social behavior that needs to change in Kansas city is driving to work, or anywhere for that matter in a four+ seat car with no one but yourself. I want to encourage and facilitate carpooling in Kansas City since only less than %20 do carpool, and even less than that carpool on a regular basis. This would reduce traffic, reduce fuel consumption, save money, reduce pollution, and eliminate a need for expensive and unnecessary highway construction.

I think their are several ways to measure the effectiveness of my project in reducing the number of cars on the road, and they are as follows.

1. Businesses would notice and could report a reduction in the amount of employee parking spaces they need to buy in local city parking garages.

2. The news reports every morning on traffic jams and accidents, and would definitely notice a reduction in congestion and accidents.

3. The Missouri Highway commission also monitors this information closely, and would also notice and report a reduction in the number of cars on the road during rush hour.

4. The city tests air quality for the EPA, and would be able to tell if their was an increase in air quality, which would indicate a reduction in vehicle emissions, and thus a reduction in the number of cars on the road, which would point to increased carpooling.

Barf!!!

Click for the Hilarious

This blog has some of the worst logos ever seen, and they are all awesome. My personal favorite is for Priority Medical Services.